So the post grad life of Miriam Ruth Necastro has been a struggle. Hashtag the struggle is real. May 10th I walked across the stage as a Cum Laude graduate (i still don't know how that happened) and received my degree in Secondary Education English & my minor in Theatre. The road to that moment was not easy street y'all. Between the months of April, while I was still student teaching, and August I applied to 30 different school districts. Yes you read that correctly-THIRTY, 3-oh
Vast majority of schools I never heard back from. When I was called for an interview usually a day or two after I received the "thanks but no thanks" rejection letter in the mail. When Caissie and I talked about my frustrations & rejections she simplified them with "it's a job getting a job." Damn straight it is.
Needless to say the vast majority of this summer has been spent feeling quite frustrated and a tad defeated. I knew it wasn't going to be able to find a teaching job around here, but I didn't think it would be this hard. I would log on to Facebook and feel sorry for myself when I saw postings from friends I just graduated with getting full time positions for this school year. I would think to myself what am I doing wrong here? Then I began to re-think my choices, like is this profession for me? I had an opportunity to teach in the Orlando, Florida area and I decided not to go that route because I didn't think I would be able to afford moving and living there on my own, and Fl is notorious for not treating their teachers well. But when I saw some friends moving to take jobs in the south, I thought to myself well you're an idiot for staying here. I was in a funk.
I went back to the city with friends over 4th of July weekend. We drank booze, saw on point musicals, ate fat food, and laughed a ton.
I had a 2 interviews when I got back. Both turning out to be rejections. Okay fine. A few weeks later I had a first round interview at the huge North Catholic HS in Pittsburgh. I drove down there, owned the fuck out of the interview (can i say "fuck" when talking about a catholic school? oh well) and then had a lunch date with Ryan at Cheesecake Factory. I was on a high. I said all the right things, and wouldn't have changed any responses I gave. I'm so moving on to the second round! The next evening I received my reject email. But I did so well! WTF here I thought I ripped the proverbial heart from the chest. "You're not what we're looking for," the email said. I compensated by putting up the front "You're right! I'm too bad ass to teach at your school, and you couldn't handle me."
Enter Lauren Worsham. "that sucks. I'm a firm believer in fate. A different better job is heading your way."
Fate? Uhh? I'm too cynical for that shit. (famous last words) Better job? I'm more than likely going to have to be a daily substitute teacher and basically babysit, then work at Starbucks night shifts.
Last Friday I was surfing different area schools websites in order to find out how to get on their sub teacher list. Through that I found a few places had AmeriCorps openings. My cousin did AmeriCorps at a school in Cleveland and highly recommended I apply. Okay so I did. Monday I was called by one of the school and asked to come in for an interview. I did, and was offered the position. I took it even though it was on the elementary level. My degree is for grades 7-12; needless to say elementary kids aren't my favorite. The next day I received a call from the principal of West Middlesex HS saying that he saw my name on the AmeriCorps database and even though their AC positions were filled they needed a long term/permanent sub for English because a teacher would be out 9 weeks. Thursday I interviewed for the job, and Friday I was offered said job. I took it. So for 9 weeks I'll be the primary teacher for 7th grade Language Arts with the opportunity to come back for other sub jobs or for an open position. {basically if i had never signed up for AC then WM would never had seen my name & credentials. MAJOR If/Then the musical moment}
During the interview I made a point of mentioning that my uncle had taught at this school for 30 years. The principal replied that he was one of my uncles students. Not entirely weird. My uncle Tom had a metric ton of students over the years.
Here's where it gets weird: When my uncle was hired at WM it was a week before school started, at the middle school English level, and as a long term/permanent sub. He eventually went on to teach there for 30 years until he passed away in 2005.
I'm being hired basically a week before school starts at the same school, same grade level, same subject.
I wanted so badly to be able to ring him up after I accepted the job. Instead I put on James Taylor's "Fire & Rain" and harmonized with the voice of the unseen soul sitting in the passenger seat of my car.
Talk about like fate, right? (well played Lauren well played)
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